Katherine P. Hazen

I completed a PhD in the Law-Psychology and Social and Cognitive Psychology Programs at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in 2021 and a JD, with a concentration in constitutional law, from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2018. As a graduate research assistant at the UNL Center on Children, Families, and the Law, I designed and implemented evaluations of the Nebraska Resource Project for Vulnerable Young Children, the Nebraska Center on Reflective Practice, and the Children's Justice Programs

I am an evaluator with ten years of diverse experience designing and implementing evaluations of professional development programs and justice-based interventions. I use mixed methodologies to assess evaluability, implementation, and impact. Broadly, I study the role of social identity in interactions between decision audiences, decision makers, and decision systems. I examine questions about how decision-making processes influence cooperation and support by increasing sense of belonging as well as how social identity moderates the mechanisms through which decision audiences and makers perceive and evaluate decision-making processes. I examine decision-making processes through social-situational observations, survey responses, interviews, focus groups, archival record analysis, and experimental designs. 

Dr. Eve Brank was my doctoral advisor and the Chair of my dissertation committee at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.